Astrogliosis marker 11C-SL25.1188 PET in traumatic brain injury with persistent symptoms.

This article focuses on investigating astrogliosis—a reactive astrocyte response marked by increased monoamine oxidase B (MAO-B) density—in individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) experiencing persistent symptoms. Using the PET radioligand ^11C-SL25.1188 to measure MAO-B total distribution volume (V_T), the study compared 29 community-based TBI patients with persistent symptoms to 29 healthy controls, finding significantly elevated MAO-B levels in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), other cortical regions, hippocampus, and subcortical areas in the TBI group. Elevated MAO-B density correlated with slower psychomotor and processing speed, as well as with serum markers of astroglial activation such as glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and total tau, particularly within two years post-injury. These findings provide evidence of ongoing astrogliosis in chronic TBI and suggest that MAO-B-targeted PET imaging could be valuable for stratifying patients and assessing therapeutic interventions aimed at modulating astrogliosis in TBI with persistent symptoms.